My Folks Don't Want Me to Talk about Slavery: Personal Accounts of Slavery in North Carolina

by Belinda Hurmence (Editor)

Who could better describe what slavery was like than the people who experienced it? And describe it they did, in thousands of remarkable interviews sponsored by the Federal Writer's Project during the 1930's. More than 2000 slave narratives are now housed in the Library of Congress. More than 170 interviews were conducted in North Carolina. Belinda Hurmence pored over each of the North Carolina narratives, compiling and editing 21 of the first-person accounts for this collection. These narratives, though artless in many ways, speak compellingly of the joys and sorrows, the hopes and dreams, of the countless people who endured human bondage in the land of the free.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, American History, African American, Race

103 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1984

Reviews

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

So I says to myself, I says, stop reading books that make you angry and depressed.

To top it off, these are all NORTH CAROLINA accounts! Places that I frequent to boot. I recognized every slave owner last name used in the book now I feel leery.

It's hard to believe we've only been free for about 145 years. Not including Jim Crow, which was probably worse. People are so quick to say, get over it! But how can I. This all happened back in my grandparents and great grands lifetime. To think that my Great Grandmom or Grandmom and Granddad, as honest and hard working and good that they are, went through things like this makes me hurt so much inside. And it makes me angry and I don't know who to be angry at, so it just chews at me. It'd be nice if more were said. If it wasn't something swept under the rug. If there WAS some sort of apology.

Lord knows. seeing how the US compulsory education system does not and apparently will not teach a damn thing about Black history (other than MLK in February), I need to know my history. Even if it is painful. Even if it hurts. Even if it makes me so bitter and sad and infuriated that breathing becomes caustic. Maybe one day I'll gather the courage to ask my grandparents their experiences. But probably not.

[Merrikay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhere in the Library of Congress there are 10,000 typewritten pages of interviews with former slaves.  This archive, known as Slave Narratives, is the result of a government funded project to provide work for some of the unemployed during the depression in the U.S. in the 1930's:  The Federal Writers' Project.  Out of these stories of 2,000 people, Belinda Hurmence has chosen to edit and publish 21 of these stories, focusing on those who lived in North Carolina.  The location was perfect for me because I recently read Emma LeConte's diary of her life in North Carolina during the march of Sherman, written from her perspective as a slave owner.  Each chapter is short, around 4 pages, and the interviewers worked from a list of the same questions.  Because of that I found the stories to be somewhat repetitive at times, but realized this method also provided for a good comparison of attitudes and experiences of different people in similar circumstances.  For example, all were asked about their physical care regarding food, clothing, and housing.  In this common experience of slavery, there was a variety of stories as some were starved, while others were fed well.  Other questions were directed at literacy (non-existent), religion, whipping.  No analysis is made of the stories, although there is a good introduction by Hurmence, reminding the reader of the circumstances and timing of the interviews, e.g. during the depression the past may have looked better than it would if you interviewed the same people today.  Of course there is the fact that the period following emancipation was a transition period that did not go smoothly.  Some met it with joy, others with fear, and others with the common Stockholm Syndrome.

This was interesting, if painful, reading in light of conversations today as we hear responses to current movies such as Django and Twelve Years a Slave, as well as the class wars addressed by Occupy Wall Street.  There are some who say that plantations have been replaced by ghettoes, which are just as difficult to escape from.  It's difficult for me to understand that comparison when I think about slaves being whipped and starved and separated from their families.  Then I think about the racist use of the death penalty today, hunger and poverty in the U.S. today, and the racist use of child protective services and let's don't even get started on who died in Vietnam.

Fascinating if depressing reading, these are stories that deserve to be heard, with a reminder that they were told to white people so need to be followed up by reading African American authors.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Real accounts of ex-enslaved people. It is transcribed through interviews done in the 1930s when the majority of the interviewees are in their 80s-90s.
Absolutely chilling.

[Dee Cherry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dear friend loaned me her personal copy of this book to read over the weekend. Most of the slaves lived in or around Raleigh. I understood the interviews took place in 1937 & most of the former slaves were ages 88-104. I had a difficult time understanding how the majority of the slaves interviewed were not against slavery & I wondered if it was out of fear, or totally made up by the interviewer of the Federal Writer's project. All of the former slaves stated they were not allowed to read or write (which I believed), were well spoken, & mentioned when their freedom was given. The word slave & N-word was used interchangeably by almost all. While there were 21 different people, their stories were similar with only a couple speaking against slavery. I found this book's information interesting & plan to read other slave narratives.

[Kevin Keating · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are the words of actual former slaves. It is only a curated excerpt of the thousands of voices recorded in 1937 by the government. Most of the former slaves were very old, but it is a lifeline to that period, capturing their actual words and thoughts. Very interesting. Lots of use of the n-word and some disturbing stuff, but also some fascinating takes on reconstruction. Many of the slaves say they would have preferred their former life to the life they were given after slavery. Gave it four stars because I wanted more. The fact of excerpting it at all makes it less interesting to me. It is a good read but I want to hear more.

[HeavyReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

These are the stories of real people who really spent time as slaves. These folks (in their 80s and 90s and 100s at the time) told their stories to people working for the Federal Writers' Project during the Great Depression. Over 2,000 former slaves participated in this project. This book collects the oral histories of twenty-one former slaves from North Carolina.

Most of these stories are three or four pages long and are written the way the people who told them spoke. Some talk about beatings and abuse, scarcity of food, and lack of adequate clothing and housing. More disturbing to me where the people who said they had been better off under slavery.

This book was sobering, and needs to be read by every person taking an American history class. Hell, it needs to be read by everyone who calls themselves an American.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The actual voices of former slaves really come through in these oral histories. What is so interesting are the differences in experiences. Some spoke of horrific experiences like beatings of slaves to death and selling three year olds away from their parents. Others described how little they had after freedom - some even saying they were better off in slavery. Amazing.

More of these oral histories are available for free in digital forms as ebooks.

[Peacegal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a precious journal of American history that everyone should read. The folks who told these stories are now long gone. Don't let their voices fade away.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thomas Hall, aged 81:

You are going around to get a story of slavery conditions and the persecutions of Negroes before the Civil War and the economic conditions concerning them since that war. You should have known before this late date all about that. Are you going to help us? No! You are only helping yourself. You say that my story may be put into a book, that you are from the Federal Writers' Project. Well, the Negro will not get anything out of it, no matter where you are from. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. I didn't like her book, and I hate her. No matter where you are from, I don't want you to write my story, because the white folks have been and are now and always will be against the Negro. (53-54)

[Jackie Keller · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I didn't know the Lord would let people live who were so cruel."

[Shawn Thrasher · Rating 5 out of 5]

You must read Hurmence's introduction to truly understand these narratives, because some of what the formerly enslaved people are saying is really difficult to comprehend for our modern ears. "Some of the accounts may have been skewed," she writes." As all oral histories are likely to be to some extent, by the subjects telling what they believed their questioners wanted to hear." Additionally, the Depression was in full throttle, with most people (white and black) out of work, farm prices the lowest in memory, and many people nearly starving and barely getting by; a distance time just this side of memory when an authority figure fed and clothed you may have seemed like good times when the wolf was at the door. Certainly, the majority of these narratives tell of a life of cruelty beyond our imagining, and even the formerly enslaved persons with the most rose-colored glasses narratives witnessed "whuppings", rape, families split up, illiteracy, Christianity used as a cudgel, cruelties of all measures, that can't be completely erase by storis of food and clothing and "kind" enslavers. There is perseverance and survival here too. There is anger as well - Thomas Hall's narrative in particular is understandably full of vitriol towards a society and a system that denigrated him; it's also incredibly sad. What this book does more than anything else is exposes this way of life for its brutality and inhumanity, and that this "land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten" - should NOT be forgotten or whitewashed over or romanticized. - “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" indeed.

[Justin Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this and getting to know 21 former slaves. Each unique recollection reveals something of the human spirit that leaves the reader astonished, sometimes angry, but usually with a smile.

[Joyce Himmel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please read. It is definitely worth it.

[Carly B · Rating 4 out of 5]

There should be way more collections of accounts like these—and more conscientiously gathered than these oral histories, too, but there are not

[Deemcgdiana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book earned its 5 star rating from me because of the important significance of what it holds in its pages. A must read by all. The truths can be difficult and brutal to acknowledge and face, but they must. So I read.

[Maya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excuse this poorly written review, but my head is buzzing as I have just finished this book, which I read in one sitting.

I had "My Folks..." on my TBR list for a long time and now that I've read it, I need some assistance in understanding it better. My recommended companion reads are noted below.

The brutal and inhumane enslavement of peoples of African origin and Native Americans (not discussed herein) was 246 years long, the editor cites, while it has only been 156 years since slavery technically ended in 1865. I add these dates for those folks, like myself, who consider themselves otherwise well-educated but received only a broad-strokes overview of this time period as part of their formal learning, and therefore must commit themselves to ongoing and lifelong self-directed learning to make up for it. Please sit with those numbers for a moment.

- 1863: Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation
- 1865: Conclusion of the Civil War and the date the last African slaves were freed and when Juneteenth is now celebrated (June 19, 1865)

These narratives, selected and edited by the editor for publication in 1984, were collected in 1937 during the Great Depression as part of the Federal Writers Project collection of "Slave Narratives," accounting for 10,000 pages of interviews, now housed in the Library of Congress. See more original documentation here: https://www.loc.gov/collections/slave... (LOC = Library of Congress).

A number of things that struck me were that the people recounting the stories were between the ages of 81 and 104, old to ancient by any scale, and therefore seemingly a specific and select group by the time the late 1930s came around for interviews. The interviewers were all white, which automatically creates an uneven dynamic for telling and retelling as this was an enduringly cruel and aggressively violent period in American history for Black folks.

It was really hard to hear folks in the oral narratives repeatedly say that life was, in many ways, more difficult under "freedom" than enslavement because of the deplorable conditions that they were released into.

The elders repeatedly stated that the younger generations did not know the meaning of work compared to how they had grown up. (So much unraveling needed here.)

The interview of Thomas Hall, 81, was one that I connected with most. He states, "You are going around to get a story of slavery conditions and the persecution of Negroes before the Civil War and the economic conditions concerning them since the Civil War. You should have known before this date all about that. Are you going to help us? No! You are only helping yourself... No matter where you are from, I don't want you to write my story, because the white folks have been and are now and will always be against the Negro."

Companion reads:
- "Barracoon: The Story of the Last 'Black Cargo,'" Zora Neale Hurston
- "Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl," Harriet Ann Jacobs
- Read about the Green Book or Sundown Towns, if you haven't already

[Michael Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting stories about Southern slavery told by slaves in the last 5-20 years before the civil war ended, told through interviews in the 1930's when the people were 80 and 90 something years old. Good masters, bad masters, screwing young slaves and then screwing the resulting daughter slaves to increase the stock, books and reading absolutely outlawed, the churches preaching obey your masters. The feeling that Lincoln did not free them, because they were still utterly dependent on former masters after the war. I knew most of this but it's quietly chilling to hear in their own words.

[Bibliomama · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not sure why I bought this book. Most of the slave narratives are available online, and I have read the account of Benny Dillard, who was owned by my third-great grandfather in Georgia. It breaks my heart and makes me sick that my ancestors owned human beings.

All of these accounts were moving in very different ways. My favorite was Thomas Hall, who spoke with brutal honesty and lyrical eloquence about motives - of Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the WPA. It was searing.

[Shelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quote from one of the speakers: Two snakes full of poison. One lying with his head pointing north, the other with his head pointing south. Their names was slavery and freedom. The snake called slavery lay with his head pointed south, and the snake called freedom lay with his head pointed north. Both bit the nigger, and they was both bad". p. 80

[Jacqueline Bell Al-guweiri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great Book!! It was amazing to read these excerpts from different former slaves that were interviewed and how they viewed slavery, their "Marsters" and families along with the aftermath of "freedom". This was a book that not only changed my mind but also taught me a few things I really didn't know about slavery. I would recommend this book!

[Mark Frazier · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad I read this book. It never come to my attention to hear it from a slaves view. To hear that the same people that freed the slaves was sometimes worse then the slave owners themselves. I could see how some were pushed back to there owners, especially the ones that were treated like humans. Freedom with out free, is doom. Educate in then you will have freedom.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars because it is a must read. Fascinating. I wish we all talked more openly about this period in our history. Too sad for words but I'm so glad we have these oral histories.

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of 21 out of over 2000 recollections from the 10,000-page Federal Writers' Project Slave Narratives compiled in the 1930's.

While most of the accounts speak of extreme oppression and whipping, surprising to today's sensibilities, many of the accounts look back fondly on the slave experience and speak positively of their former masters. This is in large part due to the fact that much oppression continued after slavery. The former slaves were left to fend for themselves without land, draft animals, or education. They were still largely dependent on the white people who had previously been their owners. They received freedom without the means to fully enjoy it. Many stayed on with their former owners.

Some plantations had 100 to 400 slaves. Some owners had only 25 slaves. Pretty much universally the slaves were worked sun up to sundown with an hour or two meal break 6 days a week. There was a week off at Christmas and maybe a week off after harvest. It was pretty uncommon for a slave father to be with the family. One thing that is apparent was that there were good masters and bad masters. The bad ones administered more whippings, sold their slaves, and molested the women. But even the good ones did some whipping, kept the slaves in their place, and did not allow slaves to learn reading and writing.

Some accounts:

“They whipped for most any little trifle. They whipped me, so they said, just to help me get a quicker gait.” Jacob Manson

“You was whupped according to the deed you done in them days. A moderate whupping was thirty-nine or forty lashes, and a real whupping was a even hundred; most folks can't stand a real whupping.” Willis Cozart

“When a slave got so bad he could not manage him, he sold him... They were the unruly ones.” Mary Anderson

“When a slave was no good, he was put on the auction block in Fayetteville and sold.” Sarah Louise Augustus

“The white folks did not allow us to have nothing to do with books. You better not be found trying to read. Our marster was harder down on that than anything else.” Hannah Crasson

“I think slavery was a mighty bad thing, though it's been no bed of roses since, but then no one could whip me no more.” Jacob Manson

“For myself and them, I will say again, slavery was a mighty good thing.” Mary Anderson

“Lincoln got the praise for freeing us, but did he do it? He give us freedom without giving us any chance to live to ourselves, and we still had to depend on the Southern white man for work, food, and clothing, and he held us, through our necessity and want, in a state of servitude but little better than slavery.” Thomas Hall

[John Engelman · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Folks Don’t Want Me to Talk About Slavery consists of twenty-one transcripts of oral accounts of blacks who were old enough to remember having been slaves. These were recorded by the Federal Writers’ Project during the 1930’s. More than two thousand former slaves participated in the program.

One reading these accounts may be surprised by two features. First, most of these former slaves use the n word when referring to themselves and other Negroes. Whites do not like to hear Negroes use the n word because we think it indicates self contempt.

This is my theory about the n word. When a word moves from one language to another it often keeps the basic sound while changing pronunciation. Languages have different ways to shape words. Most of the people selling the first slaves to English settlers in the New World were Spanish. “Negro” is the Spanish word for black. Nevertheless, the English settlers were often illiterate. “Negro” was difficult for them to pronounce, so they invented a word that was easy for them to pronounce.

At any rate, the n word has become even more unprintable than the several obscene words. When quoting one of these former slaves I will replace the n word with a capital N.

The second surprise is that some of these former slaves remembered their former owners affectionately. Some were even nostalgic about slavery.

Yes there are accounts of cruel slave owners, and gruesome mention of floggings. Some slave owners forced female slaves to have sex with them.

Willis Cozart said, “I remember several slave sales where they sold the pappy or the mammy away from the chilluns, and that was a sad time.”

Sarah Debro said, “Marse Cain was good to his N. He didn’t whip them like some owners did, but if they done mean, he sold them.”

Mary Anderson said, “The second year after the surrender, our marster and missus got in their carriage and went and looked up all the Negroes they heard of who ever belonged to them…When Marser and Missus found any of theirs they would say, ‘Well come back home’…

“Some were so glad to get back they cried…

“I think slavery was a mighty good thing for Mother, Father me, and the other member of the family, and I cannot ay anything but good for my old marster and missus.”

I am not justifying slavery. I wish the slave trade had not been allowed. I think southern whites should have grown their own crops.

[Zuska · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the 1930s the Federal Writers Project conducted oral interviews with more than 2000 former enslaved Americans. These are housed in the Library of Congress. Belinda Hurmence compiled and edited 21 of the 176 interviews that were conducted in North Carolina. She chose to include narratives only from individuals who were aged 10 or older at the time freedom came, to increase the likelihood of direct report of experience rather than hearsay. The interviews are devastatingly painful to read - nearly every person interviewed reports having been whipped and/or witnessing others being whipped, including their parents or other relatives. White preachers instructed slaves to obey their masters, and threatened they would "go to hell alive" if they sassed their masters.

One of the interviewees, Thomas Hall, aged 81 at time of interview in 1937, said:

"I do not believe in giving you my story, because with all the promises that have been made, the Negro is still in a bad way in the United States, no matter in what part he lives, it's all the same. Now you may be all right; there are a few white men who are, but the pressure is such from your white friends that you will be compelled to talk against us and give us the cold shoulder when you are around them, even if your heart is right towards us. You are going around to get a story of slavery conditions and the persecution of Negroes before the Civil War and the economic conditions concerning them since that war. You should have known before this late date all about that."

One cannot argue with Mr. Hall on this point. The date is very late by now, and we white people are still only a tiny bit better at knowing what we should have known by now.

At the time these interviews were conducted, my mother was around 10 years old. The end of slavery, the coming of freedom, does not seem so very long ago when looked at that way. Important perspective for our present times. The sadistic violence enacted by white people - women as well as men - against black people was widespread, accepted as the norm and as justified. This legacy is still with us. This is why I find Heather Cox Richardson's Letters From An American such a cogent view on our current events, because she understands - and explains - what is happening today in light of the shadows cast from 150 years ago. The past is never over...

[Tom Schulte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Culled from the myriad pages of the Federal Writers' Project Slave Narratives, this slim volume focuses on oral history from ex-slaves interviewed in North Carolina. Done at the time of the Depression, some found speaking to the young, white government workers a time to recall slavery as days better or at least no worst than there then current suffering. One thing consistent when mentioned was how Wheeler's Cavalry, though Confederate, were rapacious, horse-borne criminals. Overall, this is a moving, very human recollection of life-long tragedy and travail and I am certain any sampling from that rich trove of oral history would be, so the No. Carolina connection is merely incidental.

Speaking of "incidental", while reading this book, I also listened to the Andre Williams tune "Pass The Biscuits Please". Andre "Mr. Rhythm" Williams started his recording career in Detroit, Michigan on the small but prolific Fortune Records label. Williams recorded upon, or has writing credits upon, in excess of 200 songs - including: "Bacon Fat", "Pig Snoots", "JailBait", "Pass The Biscuits", "Rib Tips" and "The Greasy Chicken". One of the recollections here, of the many about poor food conditions under slavery, declaimed the fact that "Marse" never shared biscuits with the slaves. Thinking of the novelty song and the dialect preserved here, it feels to easy and even possibly stereotypic if not racist humor to unit the two. Thinking more deeply on it, it recalls to mind

“Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The House of the Dead

Of those interviewed here, few suffered whippings or witnessed them firsthand while most could speak to knowledge of such acute, episodic violent tragedies as corporal punishment, family-separating public sale, etc. But, what emerges is the weight of the small, day-to-day injustices, just like the constant nuisances that may emerge in a novelty song.

[Erwin Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Editor Belinda Hurmence’s My Folks Don’t Want Me To Talk About Slavery provides excerpts about the lives of ex-slaves. Much of this narrative originated through the Federal Writers’ Project that was created to provide work for jobless writers and researchers. It initiated a program whereby field workers interviewed ex-slaves wherever they were found. But the contents of this book represented a compilation of stories of ex-slaves in North Carolina.
Each ex-slave’s narrative begins with where he or she was born in North Carolina. A discussion followed and the slaves who were mainly in their “eighties and nineties” described their lives in slavery. They commented about their meagre diets of cornbread, meats, and molasses, and their inadequate clothing. They talked about having working in the fields from sun up to sun down, and the whippings they received from their master or mistress when they disobeyed them. The slaves’ rules were often harsh, and based on the whims of the slave holders.
Many ex-slaves were encouraged to attend the church of their master and mistress. They would hear the preacher talk about how they should obey their master. But they were never given the chance to learn from books. For it was against the rules for them to be caught reading a book or a newspaper. These slaves couldn’t even read the Bible. So for the most part, a majority of the ex-slaves didn’t even know how to read or write.
It was however surprising to hear that many of these ex-slaves liked being with their master and mistress. Some of them said that they were well-treated, and they enjoyed their slave holders. On the other hand one wonders if these ex-slaves were only saying what they thought the interviewers wanted to hear. Many of them though thought that even after they were emancipated that their living conditions were worse. This was because they had their freedom, but had no one to care for them with a cabin, food, and clothing. Many of these ex-slaves therefore opted to remain with their slave master and mistress, for they lacked the means to take care of themselves.

[Tara Syverson Wroblewski · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is 21 oral histories of former NC slaves; good for us all to read to better understand our American history. Some interesting excerpts:
"But, while for most colored folks freedom is for the best, they's still some that ought to be slaves now Those that's done clean forgot the Lord; those that's always cutting and fighting and going in white folks' houses at night they ought to be slaves. They ought to have an old marse with a whip to make them come when he say come and go when he say go, till they learn to live right." (P.61 Sarah Debro)
"Slavery was a bad thing, and freedom, of the kind we got, with nothing to live on, was bad. Two snakes full of poison. One lying with his head pointing north, the other with his head pointing south. Their names was slavery and freedom. The snake called slavery lay with his head pointed south, and the snake called freedom lay with his head pointed north." (P.81 Patsy Mitchner)
"He (master) was right good to the good ones and kinda strict with the bad ones. Personally, he ain't never have we whupped but 2 or 3 times. You's heard about these sit-down strikes lately (interview was in 1937); well, they ain't the first ones. Once, when I was 4 or 5 years old, too little to work in the fields, my master set me and some more little chilluns to work pulling up weeds around the house. Well, I makes a speech and tells them, 'Let's don't work none', so out we sprawls on the grass under the apple tree. After awhile, Old Master found us there, and when he finds that I was the ringleader, he gives me a little whupping." (P. 88 Willis Cozart) Reminds me of my son, always the ringleader, always pushing the boundaries!
Of the 21 oral histories, most of these former slaves had a good relationship with their master's - most never saw or only witnessed at a distance the harsh treatment of slaves in passing. It was hard to see that most freed slaves could not find a way to support themselves, reminded me of when Communism fell - the people wished for it to come back because they knew how to function in that economy.

[Jeremy Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a rather convenient collection of 21 narratives of former slaves from North Carolina. It was interesting to see the collection of different narratives coming from the same region of the United States.

Two narratives that stood out to me were those of Thomas Hall and Sarah Debro. Harris writes that "Harriet Beecher Stowe, the writer of Uncle Tom's Cabin, did that for her own good. She had her own interests at heart, and I don't like her, Lincoln, or none of the crowd. The Yankees helped free us, so they say, but they let us be put back in slavery again."

Debro writes that "My folks don't want me to talk about slavery, they's shame niggers ever was slaves. But, while for most colored folks freedom is the best, they's still some niggers that ought to be slaves now."

This collection of narratives not only challenges your own understanding of slavery but also the variance in experiences and opinions of former slaves. Reading this serves as a reminder of the horrible history in our nation. It also demonstrates the difficulties in navigating such an institution for slaves, owners, and other citizens. It is very powerful and requires deep pondering before, during, and long after reading.

The only criticism I have is that I would have preferred to have longer narratives in order to get a fuller understanding of the individual.

[Hydeia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am from North Carolina. I never would’ve known about this history if I didn’t come across this book. I am glad that those who were enslaved told their stories! It’s interesting to read about history that happened right on the land you’re walking on. This book should be taught in schools as it comes truly from the source- those who went through and experienced slavery. There were things I learned in this book that I never even knew existed because it was not taught in our history class. This is valuable history as it affects everyone.

When reading, it is important to consider that their experiences happened between the time of the Civil War and the Great Depression. Within that gap, so much change and adjustment happened for everyone. Without spoiling the book, I will say it seemed like everyone, (not just those who were enslaved, but everyone) had the choice of either “being free/moving forward” or “going back to their old ways.” A lot of personal preference was prevalent among the interviewees in the book. It was interesting reading their perspectives.

I also want to give kudos to the author, who actually isn’t from North Carolina, who edited and complied these oral histories for readers. This book makes me want to research more into local history, which would be a new genre of reading for me.